Well after watching the football final last night i checked out forums… and lone behold I thought the sky was falling. There was nerd rage abound as we where regaled with how the new “Look out Sir!” rule is broken and not fair.

My initial reaction was…. it’s probably not been played right. As such much lengthy explanation ensued.

Now The following is shamelessly stolen from Scoffer because I believe he explains the how the rule should be used better than I can, and he always seems to have a fair grasp of the rules, (must be a programmer thing aye Scoff :P) and so on with the show…………….

Here is how I read it working with allocating wounds from shooting.

First off we have a unit of 5 regular marines which all have the same armor save. The unit takes 20 wounds and rolls 20 armor saves. Four of which fail, remove the 4 closest models. Nice and simple.

Next we have 4 regular marines and a sergeant. 2 marines at front, then a sergeant, then 2 marines at the back all of which have a 3+ armor save. The unit takes 20 wounds and rolls 20 armor saves four of which fail so four models need to be removed. You take off the 2 at the front and have 2 wounds left to allocate. Since the sergeant is next in line he would be the one to take a wound so you roll a “Look Out Sir” for the next wound which passes so you remove one of the guys at the back. This leaves you 1 wound remaining to allocate which would also have to go on the sergeant (as he is the closest) and give you another “Look Out Sir” which also passes and and so you remove the remaining marine from the back. The marines which did the look out sir would not get their own armor save as its already been taken.

I’ve made a diagram to make it slightly easier for multi save units:

So! This unit contains 3 regular marines with a 3+ armor save and a character with 2 wounds and a 2+ armor save. Again the unit takes 20 wounds (not a good day for marines…). To speed up dice rolls you would roll 2 at a time with the following results:
4,6 – 18 saves left to take
5,5 – 16 saves left to take
2, 6 – 14 saves left to take but marine #1 is removed as a casualty and you now go down to rolling 1 at a time.
5 – 13 saves left to take
4 – 12 saves left to take
3 – 11 saves left to take
2 – 10 saves left to take and marine #2 is removed as a casualty
Next in line is the character with 2 wounds and a 2+ save so you continue to make the armor saves and not bother with a Look Out Sir roll
3 – 9 saves left to take
2 – 8 saves left to take
6 – 7 saves left to take
1 – 6 saves left to take but the character has taken a wound and only has 1 remaining. Since he will die with another hit you decide to start taking the look out sir for the remaining wounds
4 is rolled for the look out sir and marine #4 takes his 3+ armor save rolling a 5. 5 saves left to take
2 is rolled for the look out sir and marine # 4 takes his 3+ armor save rolling a 3. 4 saves left to take
5 is rolled for the look out sir and marine # 4 takes his 3+ armor save rolling a 2. Marine #4 is removed and you have 3 saves left to take.
You then roll the remaining 3 saves as they would all be on the character, all be a 2+ and no look out sir would be available.

…………..

And there we are… it’s not game breaking in my opinion and you always still loose the same number of unsaved wounds once a save has been failed it has been failed and there is nothing you can do about

About Chris Swaine

Chris Swaine is a fairly average gamer and when not indulging in miniature war-gaming plays on his xbox and gets out on his Mountain Bike.

Thank you for posting this excellent explanation! Look Out Sir could really benefit from some better wording in the book. But that’s how it is with GW I suppose.
My friends and I will be playing LOS like this in the future.